Camas, WA

We had a good start to our week in Camas with a big family dinner! Both of Ben's siblings were home from college on Spring break and his older sister and brother-in-law were able to make it over too. My family drove down from Bremerton for lunch with all of us. It was a lot of fun.

We spent the rest of the week hanging out, eating, playing with Caspian and going on walks. I also tried out Barre 3, an exercise class, with Susan. It was a lot harder than I anticipated! Yoga, Pilates and ballet all wrapped into an hour long class! My arms were pretty sore the next day.

Once again, the visit ended too soon. We headed out Thursday for our two day journey back to Madrid.


Lunch with Grandpa at Applebee's.

I miss these trees! Spring was definitely in the air.

Taking Caspian for a walk.

Maphumulo Wedding

Ben and I had decided to come back because our good friends from college were getting married. This was one wedding we didn't want to miss.We spent the week leading up to the wedding at our friend, Andrew's house. Jordan, the groom, came down to hang out with us. While everyone was at work, Ben spent the week playing League of Legends with his guy friends and I got caught up on The Bachelor. We made a couple of trips to the grocery store to load up on food, like pop tarts, corn dogs and pasta roni, that we can't get in Spain.

Friday came around and it was time to head to Poulsbo to help set up for the wedding and for the rehearsal. Most of us from WWU who came to help set up were in charge of balloons. It took us awhile to get all the balloons up but we had fun in the process chatting and getting caught up on each others lives. Friday night the groomsmen and groom and wives/girlfriends of the groomsmen spent the night in a hotel. We played some cards and enjoyed the pool and sauna.

Saturday morning was the big day! I woke up at 5:30am to some crazy dog barking and never quite fell back asleep. I was doing better with jet lag but I kept waking up pretty early no matter what time I went to bed and a barking dog does not help. After laying in bed for an hour I went down to the lounge to read a book until my sister and her fiancee Jack came to pick me up to take me to my grandma's to visit her and my uncles and my parents. My grandma was pretty surprised to see me! It was fun to see her and my papa and uncles. Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time because we had to leave for the wedding but it was worth it.

The ceremony was beautiful! After dinner, we danced the night away until it was time to send off Jordan and Lindsey. Afterwards we enjoyed a late night drive down to Vancouver with Jordan and Kaelynn Mumley who also live in the area. We had a lot of fun with our friends in Seattle but we were looking forward to spending some time with Ben's family.

Olive Garden is so much better when it is with good friends. (Minus Nicole because I forgot I had my camera with me until she left.)

Celebrating Ben's birthday.

The boys are together again doing what they love, playing League of Legends. Best line of the night goes to Andrew when I was asking when I should start dinner and he looks at me, surprise on his face and says: "Wait, you haven't started dinner yet?!" 

On the ferry headed to Poulsbo with Kaelynn, Jordan and Brett.

How many people can you fit a hotel room?

At Grandma and Papa's with my Uncle Steve and family before the wedding. 

Wedding time!

Congratulations Jordan and Lindsey Maphumulo! :)

Home Sweet Home

Ben and I are back in Washington for the next week and a half. It is Semana Santa (Holy Week aka Spring Break) in Spain right now and since our good friends are getting married this Saturday we decided to head back to the States for the wedding and to visit friends and family.

We left Monday morning 11:45am Madrid time and landed in Seattle 9pm local time. We had been traveling for about 16+ hours by the time Andrew and Jordan met us at the airport.

We did have a bit of a rough start to the trip. I could've sworn we were flying out of terminal 4, the same terminal Ben flew out of in December. We got to terminal 4 though and it didn't look right. We immediately went to check the departure schedule and our flight wasn't on it. My heart skipped a beat. Ben (and my head) told me we had enough time to get to the right terminal but I was a little nervous. For those of you who don't know the layout of the airport, Terminals 1, 2, and 3 are in one area and terminal 4 is about a 15 minute bus ride away. Fortunately we were able to take the airport shuttle bus and we got there in time and were able to check in, get through security and make it to our gate with an hour to spare.

We boarded our plane and got settled in for the long haul. It was going to be an 8 hour flight. Fortunately there were personal TVs on the back of the headrests in front of us so were were able to entertain ourselves with movies and TV shows. We landed in Philadelphia a little early and got a soft pretzel. I used my debit card no problem! I love not having to make a minimum purchase to be able to use a debit card.

We left Philadelphia a little late and there were no TVs on the seats so this flight was a little boring. I struggled to stay awake to fight off jet lag. We both ended up taking a small cat nap but for the most part we were able to stay awake for the whole 6 hour flight.

So far so good on the jet lag. We will see as the day goes on though. This morning (Tuesday) I was able to go to a women's Bible study with my good friend Julie. It was fun to catch up with her and attend the Bible study. Right now I am hanging out getting caught up on The Bachelor and Ben and Jordan are playing Xbox. Later we will go to Safeway where Ben and I can stock up on food we have missed: corn dogs, Pasta Roni, bagels with cream cheese, Pop Tarts to name a few. Later tonight I am going to be able to meet up with some girlfriends for dinner at the Olive Garden. Oh the Olive Garden, how I have missed that salad and creamy chicken fettuccini. More than anything though, I am excited to catch up with friends. I will be able to see my family and my grandparents and uncles before the wedding on Saturday and after the wedding we will head down to Camas to spend time with Ben's family.

It is nice to be home. :)

Life with Ben

School has been going well for Ben. The kids will be taking English proficiency tests in May so most of his work revolves around drilling the kids with the questions that will be on the test.

He is still enjoying working with the kids although some days are better than others. The day before he went on break was one of those days. For whatever reason some of the kids have taken to whacking the back of his head when he bends down to help them or whacking his behind when they see him in the hallway. While I find this quite funny he doesn't. Although if I had kids whacking my behind I wouldn't be too thrilled either. The best recent story happened when a kid bear-hugged his arm. This particular kid enjoys showing Ben his stickers he gets and the drawings he makes so the other day this kid called Ben over to his desk and when Ben walked over, the kid latched onto his arm. Ben was trying to yank his arm out without much luck. So he took one last good hard yank to release his arm and as he did so the kid stuck his tongue out and licked his entire arm as he pulled it out! Ben stared at the kid not quite believing what had happened and then rushed to the bathroom and proceeded to wash his entire arm in the bathroom sink. After this experience Ben was definitely ready for a break!

One last thing, Ben never stops making me laugh. I get home from work one day and he told me he was in the metro and sometimes they have people in there trying to get people to sign petitions for something. We usually try to avoid them. This particular time a guy walked up to Ben and started talking in English. Ben looked at him and said "No hablo inglés." (I don't speak English.) The guy got really confused and paused long enough that Ben was able to walk off.

All is good in the neighborhood

Ben had his appointment yesterday at the foreigner office to get fingerprinted for his official visa card. The paper for the appointment said to come between 3 and 6pm. So we figured we'd get there at 3 and be close to the front of the line. Not true. We got there at 3 on the dot. I saw the line I thought we were supposed to be in but there were about 20 people in it and I didn't want to stand in line and wait and get to the front and be told I was in the wrong line. So I asked one of the guards where to go and he pointed to a tent which I had not seen at first. The tent was JAM PACKED with people. He said to go over and ask "¿Quién es la última?" Who is the last? We walked in and could not believe the amount of people in there and the utter inefficiency of the whole thing. Ben counted and we were #80 in line. I was in shock. Apparently after getting out of school at 12:30pm instead of going home for lunch we should've gone straight to the appointment!

After standing in the same spot for a half hour we moved! We only made it to the other side of the aisle but we were still pretty happy. After that first half hour we moved a little more consistently but it still took us two and half hours to move out of tent and into the line that waits outside the building. We finally get inside and to a desk where we turn in the paperwork. Ben's program gave him a list of documents he needed to bring. We made all the copies and extra copies and checked and double checked and even triple checked that he had everything. As we are sitting there though, I could tell she was not finding everything she needs. She told us we needed to make a copy of the visa in the passport and the entry stamp! I looked at the list Ben's program gave us and that particular item was definitely not on the list! Fortunately the complex has a copy machine for people to use and she told us we could go out, make the copies and then come back in and wait at her desk until she finished with her current client. We wouldn't have to wait in line forever again!!

So we go out to make the copies and the machine only takes 10 and 20 cent coins. We have two 10 cent coins but we need to make 2 copies and one copy is 20 cents. I head back to where one of the guards is and asks him if he can change a 50 cent coin. He looked at me and said it was my lucky day. He had change! So we make our copies and go back inside. The lady processes his papers and we are good to go! Ben had another appointment for Thursday because we are leaving Spain before he gets his official card (it takes 40 days for him to get his card!) and he needs authorization to come back in because his visa in his passport expires this month. Basically that means collecting more documents, paying another tax and coming back to turn it all in again. It is called an Autorización de regreso appointment and they are only available between 9am and 1pm. We figured since we were already there though we would just ask if we could do it then. I asked the lady and she looked at me and paused for a second and said ok but that we needed to make more copies of the passport and a copy of the paper we just got for picking up Ben's card and we needed to hurry because she was off soon. Yes!!! But we only had a 1 euro coin. I was going to be really upset if the one thing that kept us from getting this second appointment done was not having the correct change. She then explained there was a change machine on the other side of the copy machine. So we rushed out, got change, made the copies and went back in, waited for her to finish with her current client and then sat back down. It took her awhile to process everything because she had to go to a whole other office to do it. But we sat patiently and waited. At this point we'd been there for almost 3 hours so what was another 15 minutes if it meant we didn't have to return on Thursday.

She came back with the document we needed and we got out of there. After 3 hours we finally had everything taken care of. The icing on top of the cake was coming home and having an email from World First (a company that helps make international transfers) saying that our money was received and set to be transferred to our account in the States. For whatever reason my Spanish bank card doesn't always work online so when we buy plane tickets or reserve hotel rooms online we have to use our American credit cards and since paypal has been locking me out of my account for over a month we needed to find another way to transfer the money back home. World First was an answer to prayer!

After all our productivity yesterday we can just sit back and relax the rest of the week. And let me tell you, we are looking forward to it!

This youtube video is an accurate representation of what it is like to turn papers in. (Minus the fact she just walks right in and sits down. For it to be truly accurate she needs to stand in line for 3 hours.)

Spanish Bureaucracy

Snow in Madrid

It snowed here two days in a row and from what I have heard that is quite uncommon. One of my teachers told me he has lived here about 10 years and has seen it snow maybe 2 or 3 times! And it snowed twice! It was pretty fun to see. All the kids were at school trying to make snowballs with snow that barely dusted the ground. In one of my classes I asked if the kids had played in the snow during the break and 25 faces lit up and everyone started telling me at once who they had played with and how they had made snowballs and who they threw them at etc. It was pretty cute.

Other than snow, not much else is going on here. We go in Tuesday for Ben to get fingerprinted for his student visa card. He won’t get that for another month or so but they can’t deport him so that is good. We also signed up for a gym in Alcorcón. It is right behind my school and about a 10 minute walk for Ben from his. We both have some good sized breaks during the day so it has been nice to go and get a work out in. We also discovered the spa the other day and made good use of it on Friday. 

School is going well for both of us. Students are gearing up for the language tests they will be taking in May. That means schedule changes for both of us. Mine aren’t too huge; I just had two classes get switched around. Ben will no longer be in his science classes. He is bummed about that because he got to do some fun things with the kids. Ben continues to come home with hilarious stories about his kids. The most recent one is about a little boy who is a little strange but for the most part a nice kid. He was chewing, as Ben says, “a golf ball sized piece of gum” the other day in class. Ben told him to spit it out because they aren’t allowed to chew gum. The kid told Ben it wasn’t gum and rattled something off in Spanish. Ben told him to go see the teacher. The teacher held out his hand and the kid spit the wad in the teacher’s hand.  He was chewing a mouthful of blue tac. 

We are still enjoying our chicken Sundays but this Sunday we will be mixing it up with homemade BBQ chicken pizza. I bet you all wish you could come have dinner with us! 

Snow the first day. It snowed more heavily the second day but I didn't have my camera with me.